Zipang

In the year 200X, a Japanese fleet consisting of 3 vessels leave on a mission to South America. After encountering a storm, the ship JDS Mirai find itself without its escorts and in the year 1942, traveling towards the island of Midway to face the American fleet in one of largest battles in naval history. The crew of the Mirai must decide whether or not to change the course of history by involving itself in WWII.

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78 Comments

Forty-three volumes!? That's one heavy set of books. That would normally be about $5 per volume (plus shipping), but even counting international shipping the whole lot of them can be ordered from Amazon JP for $85, which works out to only $2 apiece.

we wanted to release weekly if it was possible but, there were a lot of clarifications needed as we have been comparing the french version with the japanese... we are currently translating this from the french raws, and there were some parts that were iffy that had to be checked by a japanese translator. There were some mistranslations found from the french raws itself so, we couldn't really pump out as much as we wanted. With this said, we might be forced to change our frequency in releasing this project.

Forty-three volumes!? That's one heavy set of books. That would normally be about $5 per volume (plus shipping), but even counting international shipping the whole lot of them can be ordered from Amazon JP for $85, which works out to only $2 apiece.

FWIW, this manga would fall within the category of alternate history. Another such story, which started as a multiple volume novel but was adapted to anime and to manga, was "The Deep Blue Fleet". Because I have a fondness for such fiction, I found and bought the first two volumes of the original story, and have done a (very) little bit of translating it. The opening scene has Admiral Yamamoto waking up in sick-bay after having been shot down over Bougainville in 1943, but not in 1943 but rather about forty years earlier. What's more, he isn't his older self, but now his younger self with all his older memories. The story follows how he, with future knowledge, manages to direct Japan behind the scenes so that it would not lose World War II. The story is a fantasy for those who are still stinging from losing the war, but it is not a revenge fantasy. Though it has been said that the story is every bit as racist against Westerners as Westerners were against Japanese during the time of the war.

The opening. Behind the spoiler tag only because it's relatively large.

Spoiler

…I should have died one time.

My resurrection was a strange experience…

Regaining consciousness on the operating table…

The operation continued.

I wondered if it was the effect of anesthesia; my entire body was numb.

Around me echo the moans of injured people. As if to mask that, there are the sounds of big cannons roaring. The ground has so many bloodstained casualties, there's no place left to stand.

A medic peeks at me, then wipes the sweat off my brow.

It appeared they were taking something out from inside of him. A dull pain runs through me. The surgeon, taking up something bloodstained with his forceps, tosses it into a brass container with clanging, dry sound.

(Did that look like a shell fragment…?)

The low ceiling is shaking heavily. The ventilation ducts are showing. It looks like I’m inside a battleship.

(Why am I here…?)

I don’t understand it.

I feel out of place in a way hard to describe.

(How did I wind up in a battleship’s operating room?)

First of all, this, if memory serves me, is a Meiji era battleship. Assuming that, then I am forty years in the past.

(Is that it? I’m watching a dream.)

If I were on a heavy cruiser under steam, I would have noticed.

“Doctor, Cadet Takano looks like he is aware.”

“That so?”

A mask covering his face, the surgeon’s eyes were concentrated on him. “Our combined fleet has won a great victory.”

(What’s this about?)

“The fragments have been removed nicely. You can sleep in peace.”

The anesthesia apparently turned up, I returned to the world of deep sleep.

...He was dreaming. Beneath him lay a deep green tropical jungle.

The attack bomber was shaking violently.

The six Zeroes escorting him had been attacked by sixteen enemy P-38s, and there was a fierce battle in progress.

Would we be able to shake free?

Closing in on the enemy planes, the bomber continued to answer the challenge eagerly.

To whomever took the time and effort to make a scanlation for the latest chapter:

The quality is honestly not a big concern here. It's decent, legible, and the scans aren't painful to read or look at. My thanks to you for taking the time to deliver a chapter for all of the readers. Keep it up as much as you can!

If I had any clue who he was, I'd send him cleans for the series. I've got up to c90 sat on my hard drive and waiting, cleaned and ready for over a year now.

To whomever took the time and effort to make a scanlation for the latest chapter:

The quality is honestly not a big concern here. It's decent, legible, and the scans aren't painful to read or look at. My thanks to you for taking the time to deliver a chapter for all of the readers. Keep it up as much as you can!

personally i thought this manga got boring at around chapter 70. the plot became an endless stirring and re-stirring of tensions created by the guy they picked up in the sea, in the same way butter gets too thick if you stir it for too long. it was choking.

so he doesn't ever get born in this world but it would be a flaw in logic to assume no one else exist in this world reminds me of stargate sg1 near the end of season 1 when daniel jackson when to an alternate realitiy